


Clouded Dream on an Earthly Night

by Ambrosia29



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Mild Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-21 13:26:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6053232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ambrosia29/pseuds/Ambrosia29
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was taken. So he ran, gave chase until exhaustion and a forked road forced him to stop. But even in his dreams, he gives chase. He has to find her.</p>
<p>For him, there is no other option.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Painting Hangs on a Ivy Wall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Teamtuttle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teamtuttle/gifts).
  * Inspired by [This feeling begins just like a spark, Tossing and turning inside of your heart](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5683819) by [Teamtuttle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teamtuttle/pseuds/Teamtuttle). 



> This fic was inspired by Teamtuttle (thank you!) and "The Mystic's Dream" by Loreena McKennet. I hope you all enjoy it, this took forever to write. More is forthcoming, can't say how long it'll be, gonna be trying to focus more on The Landlord's Daughter (TLD).

The soft pants and mechanics of breathing, movement of legs and padded paws over solid wet earth, lungs expanding and contracting as breath moved in and out of lungs filled his ears. He was breathing hard. Running. Eating up the ground as he scented the air, paused for only a moment to make sure he was still on the scent.

He had to find her.

His mate.

So he ran.

~

The trees eventually parted in the growing darkness and a trail opened before him, little more than a deer-trail but he followed it nonetheless. It was lit by fireflies that vanished on impact and beckoned him onward, heart constricting and the air that stung his blue eyes made them water, yes, that had to be it.

Her scent in the air. Sweet grass and violets and soft wet earth.

~

She’d been taken from him. Hunted. And so he hunted for her. He would find her. He had to.

In his mind there was no other option.

~

The trail ended abruptly. He looked up at the obstruction, gazing up and up and up at a large wall covered with moss and ivy and all so many growing Greene things. He snuffled at the wall, wet nose meeting damp moss and inhaling deeply. Her scent. It was there. He stood, hands splayed, running with sure swiftness over limbs and branches and vines, seeking an opening. Any opening.

He stopped, disbelief and surprise making him take a step back from the wall. Inexplicably, there was a painting. Inside there was a farmhouse, so heart-bleedingly familiar. It still stood, surrounded by a barn and wild warm grasses. They fluttered in the breeze as he exhaled an awed breath. In an upper window he caught a flash of blond hair.

“Beth!” he called, hands scrabbling at the vines on either side of the painting, trembling with uncertainty. How, how could he get in? There must be a way. The blonde head disappeared further into the interior of the tiny room.

“Beth,” he moaned, throat constricting. “Please,” he whispered, “please let me in.” He rested his head against the frame of the painting, hands clutching both upper corners. He took a deep breath. Another. Just as he was resolved to break into it – any way he could – he saw a young blonde woman appear in the doorway to the house. She appeared to be looking around, shading her eyes from the early morning sun. A knife glinted at her hip.

“Beth,” he breathed, a prayer, a benediction.

His heart skipped a beat an in the momentary stillness the fireflies flowed out of him and onto – _into_ – the painting. As they alit and melted to the framework it changed, stretched and grew like a living thing, as though it were part of the wall of vines and moss beneath it.

The painting vanished and where he’d touched a gilded frame his hands now slipped from a doorway and to the golden handle of a Greene door. Hardly believing it, he turned his wrist and the door opened.

The sunlight streamed through the opening and he could smell it stronger now, the scent of warm fields in summer, of wildflowers. Of Beth.

He threw himself through the doorway, running toward the house as he called her name. The tall grass whipped at his hands uncaring, legs surging beneath him to bring him to her. She called his name, surprised and in the blink of an eye she was before him, meeting him at the bottom of the steps to her home. She grinned and threw her arms around him and he embraced her.

Night fell around them as he clutched her close to breaking, lifting her in the process. She breathed her warm laugh in his ear and he shuddered. Those were _not_ tears. No.

She pulled away and drew brows together to see the tracks down his face. “What’s wrong?” she asks, lifting her fingers to brush them away. He lifts a hand of his own and captures her wrist gently.

“This is a dream,” he says. She watches him for a moment, glancing around and again at him.

“At least it’s a good dream,” she whispers. He looks at her again, heart in his throat. Fireflies begin to wink and glow in the distance surrounding them.

“I’m tryin to find you,” he whispers, voice a low croak, thick with tones of apology.

She nods. “I know you are,” she wraps her arms around his neck again, “Of course you are.”

“You alright?” He has to believe she’s alright.

She gives him a squeeze and mutters, “Yeah,” into his neck.

“You’re strong, girl,” he whispers into her hair, clutching her to his chest as though she might vanish at any moment. And she might. So he has to tell her before its too late. “You’re so strong. Stronger than me, stronger than you know. Wherever you are, girl, you fight, you survive. I’m comin’ for you.”

He pulls back just enough to tilt her head up with gentle fingertips and look into her eyes. They shone with that same light; that same gentle _‘oh’_ as he dared what he couldn’t have if this had been anything but a dream. Fingers stroked down her cheek and he let his touch communicate what was held in his chest, in his eyes as he looked into hers.

Behind her irises, behind the surprised wonder at the sight of him, this tough-as-nails man looking upon her with such tenderness, he saw a glimmer of steel. “I _am_ strong,” she breathed, “and if you can’t find me,” she promised, “then I’ll find you.”

~

Cold. Hard. Concrete. He lifted his head and looked around; swiftly taking in the garage they’d taken shelter in the night before. Cold sunlight filtered through the dirty windows and by that small light he spotted the spattered blood, dried black, on the floor several feet away.

The others were gone, already outside. He lifted himself from the floor and gathered his things. Didn’t let it hurt, the way her scent lingered in his mind. Didn’t dare. Not so close to those assholes.

Outside, he spotted the liar. Dead, his own bolt shot through his skull and left to rot. His heart twists and he kneels to gather a blanket, offer some semblance of respect for the dead, when he remembers himself and drops the thing.

Another thing he couldn’t dare in front of them. Like a bunch of stray cats and he’ll be damned if he lets them see his guard down. They thought he was like them, a stray, wild cat.

He wasn’t. They’d hunt him down and kill him if he let them see that. So he’ll bide his time. Leave as soon as the opportunity strikes. A clean break, no mess, no arguments. No attempts on his life.

Because he had to find her.

In his mind there was no other option.


	2. Deep in the Desert Twilight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In grief fitting the long hot days Daryl finds himself wandering the deserts of his mind and soul. Though gone, still he searches for her. What he finds though, startles him from his dream.

The sky was a raging red, reflected oddly from beneath the pools of cut glass shimmering in the air high above. They looked like pools of blood, frozen and shimmering even in the high wind that sent bits of rock and sand scraping along his skin.

 

It was only what he needed. What he deserved.

 

The wind howled in his ears like a bullet exiting its chamber. It did nothing to drown out the echoing crack through the dark hallway that was his heart.

 

He wanted to say her name. Hear it whispered into the wind and carried away like a dead leaf in its violence.

 

The violence.

 

He wanted to sink to his knees but continued on, wondering why. How, when heart had stopped beating miles ago.

 

The glass-cut sand crunched beneath his worn boots and he made his way through the desert in his soul, aiming his trajectory between two pools of crimson glass hovering in the fiery sky.

 

~

 

As he walked, he slowly became aware of what he was doing. There was slow purpose in his stride. It felt familiar, yet how could he? She was gone. He knew it, felt it in his aching bones.

 

So why did he search for her?

 

He would know her anywhere. Anywhen. Even if all he found was the palest echo of her shadow cast in his dreams.

 

So he searched, knowing that finding her would bring another kind of death. He searched for her and welcomed the prospect.

 

~

 

His heart stopped. Breath stopped, but only for a moment. His shadow, dark ahead of him as darkness descended with the sun at his back, fell across something he hadn’t expected to see.

 

He was nearly abreast of a waterfall of glass, meltingly hot in the sky and no longer stained red from the vanishing sun. It glinted dully as it fell to pool on the desert floor. Occasionally, a drop of sorts would splash against blackened rocks and spill away from the grating, sharp substance of the pool.

 

It landed on a mass of glass shards, a pile of sorts. He knew without looking what he would find. Knew it wouldn’t change a thing.

 

Knew it would make things worse.

 

He walked toward it regardless, a dull roar in his ears that might have been the wind.

 

His shadow shrunk as he drew near, became something more human as it fell across the cairn of broken glass. It didn’t matter. What mattered was inside. He could see it. See her.

 

It created a strangest of coffins, piled high and entombing her perfection. No. She wasn’t perfect. But she was perfect to him. Skin pale as death, flaxen hair shining even through the darkness. It was as if the dark hadn’t touched her, as if his shadow couldn’t bear to touch this beautiful thing preserved in the vast broken desert.

 

They were there, the wounds. Her cheek and forehead marred by the slashes someone had desecrated her with but they hadn’t mattered to him. Not while she was breathing, nor after. He reached out and laid a hand upon the glass, finding it smooth despite its thousand-shard. His hand slipped down, smooth over the lid of the glass coffin, to find a lever he’d not known was at its side. But he had known, somehow. His breath caught. He shouldn’t, knew he shouldn’t. Disturbing her would be so wrong on so many levels.

 

But this was a dream. This was _his_ dream. And he didn’t get to say goodbye.

 

_I hate goodbyes._

_Yeah. Me, too._

He grasped the handle with a heavy heart and lifted it, opening the coffin like he had opened his heart to her. Like he would have opened his very soul.

 

As he took in her still form, eyes closed as though she merely slept, his eyes stung and he allowed it. This was a dream, after all. No one to shame him here. No one to see him at his weakest.

 

The dying light caught the drop as it fell, making it look for all the world like a hellion-firefly. It swirled once in the stillness of the air between them and landed upon her breastbone. It stayed, a small warmth glowing against her skin.

 

The spark rose and fell once. Rose and fell once more.

 

She was breathing.

 

He held his own, caught in his chest. He dared not move. This was too cruel. Too much like what he’d wished for in waking, nearly deluded for a split second while he’d held her in his arms. But he couldn’t deny it, couldn’t look away and couldn’t berate himself for fanning these grief-fed flames.

 

So he knelt beside her and watched as she breathed. Watched until he couldn’t bear not touching her, stayed silent until he couldn’t keep himself from soft words he only imagined she could hear.

 

His fingers trailed gently over the backs of her hands where they cradled her stomach, stroked her cheeks tenderly, feather-light and trembling. His heart was in his throat but that didn’t stop him from telling her how he missed her, how he was sorry he’d failed to check the door.

 

Her mouth slid up into a small smile and she whispered to him that it wasn’t his fault. Tears fell at the gentle admonishment, that too cruel subconscious telling him only what he wanted to hear. They all became reddened fireflies and alighted around her face and hair, so beautiful in death.

 

One landed at the small hole in her forehead, crawled inside and lit her from within like a warm lantern, taking away the illusion of death, making her seem so alive and so much more beautiful for it.

 

Her sun-lit beauty broke something inside him.

 

There were no more tears left. Only a deep sweet ache that would never fade, would haunt his steps and burn him up from the inside until he was naught but ash. He reached up to close the lid of her glass coffin. Hesitated. Leaned down and brushed a kiss to her lips. Whispered what he’d kept locked inside when he’d had the chance to tell her, though it’d burned gently in his eyes. As it did now, tear-streaked though he may be.

 

“You. It was you.”

 

It was everything. The last thing. He took a breath, prepared to shut the lid and walk away. His arms tensed to do so when a flash of color drew his eye.

 

Hers had opened. His heart stopped. They locked onto his, gentle and confused, as though waking from a dream. She whispered.

 

“Daryl?”

 

~

 

He opened his eyes and blinked at the warm rise of the sun. Rick was holding Judith. It was time to go. Daryl brushed away the mingling of painful warmth from the lingering dream and got up to walk across the proverbial desert his life had become.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written in a very different style than I'd intended but I like it regardless and am posting it anyway. Yes, there is still a chapter three coming up. I hope you like it, too.


	3. Even the Distance Feels So Near

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the storm and rain and walkers held at bay like despair clawing in his soul, Daryl dreams again, of the woman who taught him to hope. whose hope he still struggled to cling to.

Of all the things his mind tormented him with, this was the worst. Of its escapes? It was the best.

She stood before him, the glass coffin empty in the silent and still desert. The wind no longer howled and grass crunched beneath his feet where once there had been sand. It was dry, bleak like everything else and above all he was exhausted. So much so that seeing her was a painful relief. One he’d denied himself, taking watch when he should have slept along the road.

The road that took him further away from the woman he’d left without her glass coffin. She stood before him, her yellow polo beneath that silly white sweater he’d spattered with blood.

There was nothing to marr its perfection now. Not unless he touched her.

She looked at him, concern lacing her eyes as she took him in.

“Where do you go, Daryl?”

“Can’t stay here all the time.

“I suppose so. You’re not really here, after all.”

“No…this ain’t real.” He sounded sad.

“No. It isn’t.” She sounded wistful.

“I look for you, you know. When you’re…when you’re gone.”

His heart ached. He knew what was coming. She’d never said it before, but he knew. His heart leaps to his throat when she began to cry. He lifted his hand. Hesitated. How do you comfort a specter? A figment? Did it matter?

“I’m so alone Daryl.” Her voice broke as the tears rolled down her cheeks and she held her arms, hugging herself. “I’m afraid.”

The admission broke him: it didn’t matter. Be she spirit or solid warm woman in his arms, he couldn’t deny her. He drew her forward against his chest, the sensation a little odd. She was warm against him and he drew her into his lungs, scent swirling like cigarette smoke and so much more intoxicating. He tucked her head beneath his chin, stroking her hair slowly.

“S’ alright girl,” he whispered into her hair, eyes stinging. “Y’ don’t need to be afraid no more. The worst is already over.” His heart lurched on the memory, ached like a fist to the gut.

“Is it?”

He nodded, face in her hair. “Yeah,” he mumbled.

He pulled away, held her at arm’s length and eyed the healing marks on her face. Reached up, tenderly traced the slash on her forehead with his thumb. She closed her eyes at the contact, leaned slightly into his touch.

“Y’ can’t see ‘em, but they’re still there.”

“What?” She reached up and fingered her cheek as he tentatively touched just to one side of the…entry wound. Her brows drew together briefly and they moved in a series of confused motions as she touched his wrist and his hand hesitated in front of her face before settling on her cheek. She fingered her scars – her initial goal, he was sure – then settled back to his wrist.

“Oh,” she breathed eyes wide and locked onto his. For a moment there they were, back at that table before all went to hell. His eyes were warm and spoke volumes. Hers were still gently surprised. She swallowed nervously, licked her lips. He tracked it with his eyes, drawn to the movement. He ached. Oh, how he ached. To have her so close, he could feel her breath rise and fall against his chest, hands curled into his shirt beneath his vest, still damp with her tears.

Glancing at her cheek, he turned her face just a little, thumb stroking the line there. The once-red cut was scarring over, a deep red scab surrounded by bright pink scar tissue, as was everything else. “They’re healing.”

Fresh fear trickled through her eyes, fingers tightened in his shirt just slightly, catching to tug at his chest hair but he didn’t mind the sting. The least of his worries.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“Oh, girl,” he stroked her cheek again, brushed her hair back from her face, “I think it means yer getting’ ready to go.”

She clenched her eyes shut for a moment, pulled him into an embrace and tucking her face in the crook of his shoulder. He heard, felt her breathe him in and selfishly did the same while he had her there.

“I don’t want to go,” she whispered.

He clutched her tighter; reluctant at the prospect of this being the last time just as surely he knew this to be the right thing to do. She wouldn’t want him to linger with the ghost of her in his mind. Not really.

“I think you gotta, girl. I don’t want you to either but this…this isn’t real.” She shuddered against him, rubbed her face against his neck. He held back his shudder in turn.

“You’re right,” she whispered, “This isn’t real.” She pulled back. He took in her eyes, her face, so serious. Searching him. He let her, drinking in what he could while it lasted.

“If…Daryl, would you…” she glanced down at his clavicle and back up. “You care for me, right?”

Oh, _girl_.

“Yes.” It was the barest of whispers.

“I…we…there ain’t nothing between us, is there?”

“Weren’t time. S’not supposed to matter.”

“But it does matter.”

“All we have is a conversation left unfinished.”

“Then let me finish it.”

He couldn’t believe the turn this had taken, where his mind had gone. She drew him down to her with her palm against his cheek, closed her eyes as she kissed him. And he let her, heart thumping so loud he could swear she felt it in her ribcage. He closed his eyes, cradled her face in his hands and brushed his lips against hers, slowly, tremulously.

She pulled away slowly, eyes flickering between his own. “Even if this isn’t real,” she breathed, “I want to have this. I want to have this, with you. Please?”

He said nothing, desire like lightning through his system railing against the denial lodged in him like rock. While he battled, she drew him in again, eyes on his own as she kissed him. Her lips, so warm, unlike anything he could dare to imagine.

She was soft, sweet like nothing he could adequately describe. Her scent and – God, her _taste_ – enveloped him like water closing over his head. He knew it was wrong, that she couldn’t possibly be real, that somehow it was his own twisted grief that conjured her here and brought her lips to his. He drew her closer and closed his eyes, gave in to her.

He could deny her nothing.

In the end he gave her everything. She sighed and moaned into his mouth, drew her fingers through his hair. He kissed her scars and with a shudder, allowed her to kiss his own. She took her time there, stroking each with first her fingers and then her mouth. Opened them anew and left fluttering wings in their place.

In the way of dreams the scene changed. Gone were sands of the desert and dry grass; now they lay in a meadow, their bed of soft green grass and the summer sun she still smelled of. The lights around them now, green-and-flame fireflies swirling around them. Beautiful as it was, he only had eyes for hers.

She wrapped herself around him, her skin warm, a gentle shock against his own that he took in stride with everything else. She shifted, wrapped herself around him and slid a hand between them. Her eyes met his again, so serious, questioning. Asking.

It ached, the feeling surging through his chest as he gazed down at her. He smiled and stroked strands of hair from her forehead. It was enough. His breath caught as she gripped him gently, guided him inside, pulling him in with her hooked legs as he rolled his body into hers. He fought to keep his eyes open, to see the exquisite pleasure in her eyes. He blinked as she looked up at him in wonder, a hand stroking his shoulder. She looked beyond him, at something over his shoulder. His head tilted to one side, brow furrowing.

“What is it?” his voice was a gently rasped whisper. He stroked her temple with his thumb when he saw it: the shadow of wings, primary feathers making shadowed bars over her eyes. Surprised, he glanced over his shoulder again. Large wings extended from his back, a soft deep grey like ashes from a dead fire.

“I thought they’d be white,” she said. He glanced down at her, arched his back experimentally. They flexed, opening wider and relaxed partially unfurled when he settled. She gasped in surprise and pleasure beneath him, clutching his shoulder with tight fingers. He smiled down at her, leaned down to kiss her again.

“I thought they’d be yours,” he whispered just before their lips met again.

They made love like fire in a liquor-fueled building, like candle-light in a dark kitchen and when she came around him ‘oh’ just wasn’t enough. He followed when she moaned his name, pleasure arching through him, through them – like lightning and he was amazed and grateful it hadn’t woken him.

~

They lay together in the dawning light, fireflies red-and-green settling to wink around them, vanishing slowly into their skin where they landed. The sky above lightened considerably and dawn couldn’t be too far away. The sun had yet to rise, but he felt it.

It was time.

“Beth,” he whispered, nuzzling her hair.

She stirred. How could she be asleep, when they dreamed? Again, it made no sense to him, but his dreams were strange these days, wolves and fireflies, glass coffins, wings and all.

The look she gave him when she opened her eyes lodged a rock in his throat, so he leaned closer to kiss her. Sweet though it was, she pulled away and glanced at the sky before turning back to him. She glanced behind him. At him. His wings.

“You’re not dead, are you, Daryl?”

Oh, how he ached.

“No, girl. M’not dead yet.”

She sat up and leaned into him, curling her hand against his chest and tucking beneath his chin once more. “My guardian angel, then?” He stroked her shoulder.

“Something like that. Was lookin’ for you.”

“You were?”

“Yeah. Found you –

“In the glass coffin.”

“Yeah.”

They were both silent for a moment. In the fading darkness, something tugged at him. Some sense like time was running out.

Time. It was time. For…

But he knew. This place, these dreams, this…reality. It wasn’t real. Never could be.

Which was when she sighed heavily. “I have to leave, don’t I?”

He looked at her for a long moment. Sadly, he nodded. “Don’t think you’re supposed to stay here, girl.” The word spoken like another word. An endearment all his own. Theirs.

“And…you won’t be there, will you. When I…”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t work like that, no. Ain’t no dreams that can change that. S’why I gotta go, too.” He tugged at the vest around his shoulders and noticed she wore her yellow polo and grey sweater again.

The scars though…they were there too.

“Well then,” she stood, brushing the dust off her knees and offering a hand. He stared at her for another long moment, wings tight against his back. As the light of dawn formed a halo about her hair, he fell into her darkness and welcomed it as the only way he could keep her. It left a stain on him, the shadow permanent when he stood next to her. Where her hand touched his, a bright spark of her light shone from the small scar on his hand, glowed from within the darkness in his chest. “Maybe I’ll have to find you.”

He smiled softly. Sadly. The ache, the glow-in-the-darkness, intensified with it. “I’d like that, girl. But not here.  Don’t think that’s for us anymore.”

She shook her head, looking at the sky once more. “I gotta go,” she said softly. She stepped away, her hand in his pulling taut until they reached their limit. She glanced back at him once, smiling, reluctant to slip her hand out of his.

The gentle light of her smile blurred her features and gradually he realized he was looking up into a beam of light through an old wooden wall. He blinked, held up his hand, where he could still feel the warmth of her touch. The wound on his hand didn’t shine.

It was just a dream. The last one, he thought.

Sighing against the weight of his heart, he sat up and looked around. The others were asleep, mostly. There. Something bright. His breath caught as he took in the yellow, an echo of Beth’s polo and the sweetest of reminders. The music box.

Broken like Beth had been broken. He forced the thought away, drew strength from the memory of her face and the scars that hadn’t had time to heal. Though he shouldn’t, it wasn’t his to touch, he reached out and drew it close, opening it.

The tiny figure in its box neither moved nor chimed as it should. He knew it wouldn’t.

He flipped it over and drew out his knife, delicately using the tip to unscrew the access to the gears beneath. Maybe he could figure out what was wrong. Maybe, he could fix it and it could play again.

He thought she’d like that.

~

Dawn rose bright and clear for the first time in days, broke through the glass window. Miles away, fingers long since stilled twitched at the warmth and the light. Flexed. An in-drawn breath, deeper than before, lifted a small chest. It rose and fell again. Steady. Her brow twitched, pulled together, stretching the scar further downward.

“Daryl,” came the mumbled word.

Her blue eyes opened. Filled with certainty, with subtle steel.

She would find them. All of them.

Find him.

For her, there was no other option.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everybody, thank you all for your patience! I hope you all enjoyed the final chapter of this fic, I had a great time working on it. This update took WAAAY longer than I'd intended but I've been pretty busy with life, class and more life.
> 
> I will probably go through this at some point and re-edit it, it feels rough to me still. Anywho.
> 
> At least with this piece finished I think I can start focusing more on The Landlords Daughter. Again, I hope you all enjoyed! Thank you all for your love and support, your reviews have been great to read and really encouraged me to keep going with this! <3


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